Panasonic Viera TX-L26X20 review

Summary

Our Score

7/10

User Score

Review Price £275.73

Before we start getting into today’s review, we thought you might like to know that we’ve got our hands on Panasonic’s 50in 3DTV. It arrived this morning. However, with a couple of us out of the office for a couple of days from tomorrow, we decided we just couldn’t try and rush a review out before we left. That wouldn’t be doing you or a TV as potentially important as the P50VT20 justice. Hopefully, though, we’ll be able to get something serious on it together by the weekend. Watch this space.
For today we’ve got something from pretty much the polar opposite extreme of Panasonic’s TV range: the TX-L26X20. This is a 26in screen from Panasonic’s entry-level X20 LCD range, costing just £390 - and as such it’s one of the cheapest TVs Panasonic currently has on offer.

Which is exactly what it looks like, to be honest. For it’s another in a disappointingly long line of rather drab-looking TVs from Panasonic, distinguished from the budget pack only - and not happily - by the striking amount its rear end sticks out behind the screen.

The L26X20’s connections are rather more attractive. Its tally of three HDMIs is eminently respectable for such a cheap, small TV, but it’s also got a D-Sub PC input (by no means a given at the entry level) and an SD card slot through which you can play JPEG photos and, unexpectedly, AVCHD video files.

As we’ve noted before, it might have been nice if Panasonic had provided a USB slot as well. But then we guess you can’t blame Panasonic for pushing its own card format.

One other notable little point about the connections is that one of the HDMIs is a v1.4 (as opposed to the v1.3 of the other two) affair, so that you can take advantage of HDMI v1.4’s new audio return channel.

Despite the L26X20’s low level in Panasonic’s range, the set still carries the brand’s latest V-Real 5 picture processing, as well as its new, self-explanatory Vivid Colour mode.